Le Potato, here's your prompt drabble! Thanks so much for this idea by the way! I realize people like a bit of change in the pace of angst and broken romances.
I hope y'all enjoy! (Especially you, Le Potato!)
seven years of white hairs
If there was one favorite thing that Meredy loved about Ultear—and there were many things that Meredy loved about Ultear—it was her long black hair.
The time witch possessed the most soft and thick hair, raven-colored tresses that waterfalled from the top of her head to the small of her waist, a sable curtain with luxurious shine. No matter how tough the battle they came out of, not one strand of her perfect straight locks ever fell out of place.
And Meredy absolutely enjoyed combing it at the end of the day.
Ultear was never the type to particularly care about her beauty and never really tried to maintain it in any way—then again, with someone so flawless, why would they even try?—but she didn't complain when younger woman sat down behind her, whipping out a white comb and immediately running the ceramic thing through her hair. Meredy's end-of-the-day hair combing had become somewhat of a ritual at this point, and although the pink-haired adolescent had once met firm opposition to her meticulous combing obsession, the ice heiress now never complained about Meredy's actions.
The sensory mage hummed to herself while streaming Ultear's long locks through her comb, mesmerized by how the fine teeth temporarily made ripples in the woman's hair and adoring how smoothly and easily the comb parsed through the tangles—if there were any.
But suddenly, somewhere in the middle of twirling Ultear's hair around her fingers and discreetly brushing the silky strands over the back of her hands, Meredy gasped.
The older woman immediately knew something was wrong. "What?" and then turned around to face the teenager.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Meredy yelped, scrambling back around Ultear and fingering through the woman's hair desperately. Finally, her finger snagged onto a hair, and she looped it around to Ultear's face to show her. "Look!"
Ultear looked at the hair directly in front of her, her eyes crossing.
"Oh my god! This is a disaster!" she exclaimed suddenly, loud enough to make Jellal—who was lying off to the side of the campfire resting his eyes—sit up, startled.
"What? What happened?!" he asked, getting up to his feet and rushing over to see what his two guildmates were freaking out over.
He bent down as Meredy held it up to him.
"Oh," he sighed, relieved. "It's just a white hair."
"It's just a white hair?!" Ultear retorted. "It's a white hair, Jellal!"
He opened his mouth to say something, but immediately closed it again.
"I'm just 20-something years old and already have the mark of an old woman!" Ultear lamented.
Among those with raven black hair, white hairs were essentially cursed. Ultear was barely past her mid-20s…and it wasn't like she remembered her late mother ever having trouble with the standards signs of aging. Her mother had the most gorgeous hair, and for the longest time, Ultear was proud to have gotten her mother's genes.
"No, no, no," Meredy reassured her. "It's okay! Hold still, let me pluck it out for you!"
Ultear shielded her head from the younger woman's hands. "No—if you take it out, it grows into two!"
"That's just an urban legend!" Meredy argued, going for Ultear's head again.
The raven-haired (save one strand) woman got up, stepping away from her insistent hair groomer. She looked up at the confused male Crime Sorciere member, eyes narrowed. "This is your fault," she accused.
"What?! How is the color of your hair my fault?" Jellal's eyebrows furrowed. If there was one thing that he wouldn't take blame for, it was the pigment of a single strand on his guildmate's head.
"You've been worrying me too much with your brave no-Ultear-no-Meredy-get-back-I-can-do-it-myself fights!" she explained, deepening her voice and imitating his voice. "Now look at what you've done!"
"Ultear," he said. "It's fine—no one is going to notice. Not everyone is going through your hair every day like Meredy."
"No, you don't understand," Ultear whined, pouting and clutching her head. "Once you get white hairs, you're done! You can't ever go back from having white hair!"
"I swear it's fine," Jellal repeated. "And if you keep worrying about it even more, you're going to get more white hairs, aren't you?"
"Well if you didn't make me worried in the first place, I would never gotten white hairs from the very start!" Ultear replied, pointedly, jabbing a finger at his chest.
"J-Jellal!" Meredy suddenly gasped, interrupting their fight. She pointed at his head, her other hand covering her open mouth. "I saw it! Y-you have white hairs too!"
The blue-haired man suddenly blinked. "What?"
Meredy hopped over to Jellal, grabbing his head and shuffling through it with her fingers. "Here!" she exclaimed, holding the spot on his head and then walking his head—and the rest of his body following—over to show Ultear.
Ultear put her head into her hands and sat on the ground. "We're doomed," she declared upon confirming that Jellal had not just one strand of white hair, but actually two.
"I-I'm sure it's fine—this happens when you get older, right?" But even Jellal's voice held a bit of doubt. "It's bound to happen anyway."
"Well what do you think people are going to think when they see that shiny white hair on top of your head when you're not even thirty or forty years old yet?" Ultear asked him. "I'm not going to be able to date any guy without them questioning how old I actually am! And what do you think Erza would think?"
"E-Erza?" he stuttered.
"Yeah, what if she doesn't like older men?"
"You….You really think Erza wouldn't like it?"
In all of her life, Meredy didn't ever think she had ever seen Jellal this concerned.
"Well I don't know—but if what if the next time she sees you, your hair's gone completely white?" Ultear asked, injecting the image into the man's imagination.
There was a short moment of silence.
"W-We have to do something about this," he suddenly declared. "Where's the nearest place that they sell hair dye?"
"I'm sure we can find some in Clover Town," Meredy suggested.
"Let's go," Jellal said, throwing up his hood over his head—Meredy wasn't sure if that was to protect his identity or to cover his newly found white hair—and beginning to walk off.
Ultear didn't waste any time either. If anything, using her Lost Magic taught her how terrible the passage of time could be to the human body. So Meredy was thus left picking up their travel bags, chasing after them as her two older guildmates walked fast in the direction of the nearby town.
To Jellal's dismay however, the three of them would later find that it was actually quite difficult to find the blue dye for his exact shade of hair.
And unfortunately he couldn't worry about it—otherwise he would really need it.
Well Le Potato, hopefully I've done your idea some justice! Let me know what you think!
thir13enth